The times of their lives: life, love, and death in Plymouth Colony

733 Pages·2000·3.97 MB·English

by  James Deetz, Patricia E. Scott Deetz

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Page i
THE TIMES OF THEIR LIVES
Life, Love, and Death in PLYMOUTH COLONY
JAMES DEETZ AND
PATRICIA SCOTT DEETZ
Page ii
Text designer: Diana Blume
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Deetz, James.
The times of their lives:life,and death in Plymouth
Colony / James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7167-3830-9
1. Massachusetts—New Plymouth, 1620–1691.
2. Massachusetts—Social conditions—17th century.
3. Massachusetts—Social life and customs—To 1775.
4. Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony)—Social conditions.
5. Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony)—Social life and customs.
I. Deetz, Patricia E. Scott. II. Title.
F68.D4 2000
974.8'202—dc21
00-042947
©2000 by James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz. All rights reserved No
part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or
electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording, nor many
it stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise copied for public
or private use, without the written permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America Second printing, 2001
W. H. FREEMAN AND COMPANY
41 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Houndmills, Basingstoke RG21 6XS England
Page iii
To HARRY HORNBLOWER AND TED AVERY
Page iv
Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His
hand … and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here
kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation.
—William Bradford, 1630
Page v

Contents
vi
Illustrations
xi
Preface
xv
Acknowledgments
1
1PARTAKERS OF OUR PLENTY: THE PILGRIM MYTH
I WILL HARRY THEM OUT OF THE LAND! — THE EARLY YEARS, 31
2
1606–1627
THERE BE WITCHES TOO MANY: GLIMPSES OF THE SOCIAL 81
3
WORLD
IN AN UNCIVIL MANNER: SEX-RELATED CRIMES, VIOLENCE & 131
4
DEATH
171
5A FEW THINGS NEEDFUL: HOUSES AND FURNISHINGS
6STILL STANDING IN THE GROUND: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF 211
EARLY PLYMOUTH
273
7THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES: PLIMOTH PLANTATION
293
Sources and Notes
Index 354
Page vi

Illustrations
CHAPTER 1
p.1 Mr. and Mrs. West, Viewing the Rock on which our Fore-Father's
Landed at Plymouth. Early nineteenth-century woodcut depicting
Plymouth Rock as a larger-than-life symbol of the achievements of the
“Pilgrim Fathers.” Frontispiece to Lucy Brewer's The Awful Beacon
(Boston, 1816). Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society.
pp.12,13Some early graphic representations of the landing at Plymouth in 1620
and the first Thanksgiving. Top left: The Landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers, after Charles Lucy, ca. 1850. Courtesy, Pilgrim Society. Top
right: The Landing of the Pilgrims, by Henry A. Bacon, 1877. Courtesy,
Pilgrim Society. Bottom left: The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers,
parody of the engraving by Charles Lucy, ca. 1885. Courtesy, American
Antiquarian Society. Bottom right: The First Thanksgiving, by Henry
Botkin, ca. 1920. Courtesy, Pilgrim Society.
CHAPTER 2
p. Woodcut of early-seventeenth-century sailing ship. From John Leech, Iami
31sperantis strena calendis Januarii … (Edinburgh, 1617). By permission of the
Folger Shakespeare Library.
p. Jennie Brownscombe's Landing of the Pilgrims, ca. 1920, dominated by Mary
38Chilton. Courtesy, Pilgrim Society.
p. Map showing part of Cape Cod, 1620–1626. From Of Plymouth Plantation
401620–1647 by William Bradford, Samuel Eliot Morison (Ed.). Copyright
1952 by Samuel Eliot Morison and renewed 1980 by Emily M. Beck.
Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a Division of Random House
Inc.
p. Samuel de Champlains chart of Port Saint-Louis (Plymouth). From The Works
56of Samuel de Champlain …, H. P. Biggar (Gen. Ed.), 6 vols. (The Champlain
Society, 1922–1936), vol. 2, Les Voyages, Book 11 (1613). Courtesy, Harvard
College Library.
Page vii

p. William Bradford's plan of the original layout of Plymouth. From “Plimouths
66Great Book of Deeds of Lands Enrolled from An° 1627 to An° 1651.”
Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, David Pulsifer
(Ed.), Deeds, &c. Vol. 1, 1620–1651 (Boston: William White, 1861; New
York: AMS Press reprint, 1968), vol. 12, p. 2.
p. Captain John Smith's map of New England, 1616. Courtesy, Edward E. Ayer
70Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago.
p. Map of the Colony of New Plymouth, 1620–1650, with adjacent settlements.
76From Of Plymouth Plantation 1620–1647 by William Bradford, Samuel Eliot
Morison (Ed.). Copyright 1952 by Samuel Eliot Morison and renewed 1980
by Emily M. Beck. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a Division of
Random House Inc.
CHAPTER 3
p. Witches flying up chimney on broomsticks. Woodcut from Thomas Erastus,
81Dialogues touchant le pouvoir des sorcièes et de la punition qu'elles
méritent(Geneva, 1579). From Grillot de Givry, A Pictorial Anthology of
Witchcraft, Magic & Alchemy(Spottiswode, Ballantyne, 1931; University
Books reprint, 1958), p. 64. The woodcut only appears as the frontispiece in
some copies of Erastus's 1579 work. It represents a witches'house around the
close of the sixteenth century. Four witches are leaving to fly to the diabolic
Sabbath; a youth peers in through the keyhole from the outside, trying to
obtain a glimpse of their secret actions.
p. “My passing-bell is tolling, Tolling sweetly, I lie dying, and my life is from
83me flying.” From ‘‘A very Godly Song, intitled, the Earnest Petition” (1676)
in The Roxburghe Ballads, W. Chappell and J. Ebsworth (Eds.), 9 vols. in 8
(The Ballad Society, 1866–1899; AMS Press, 1966), vol. 7, p. 40.
p. A conjurer with his familiar (a black dog), practicing popular magic. Witches
87or fairies appear at the top right, and flames are shown suggestively below.
From “The Ballad of Dr. Faustus” (ca. 1628) in The Roxburghe Ballads, vol.
6, p. 699.
p. A graphic depiction of the world as it appeared to the seventeenth-century
90mind, nurtured by popular beliefs in spirits that could invade homes, striking
at will with fire, brimstone, and sudden death. From the frontispiece to Joseph
Glanvil, Saducismus Triumphatus: or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning
Witches and Apparitions(London, 1689). This item, RB 145255,